


And Life Is Over There

by lapetitesinge



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Home, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitesinge/pseuds/lapetitesinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't bring himself to wake him from the first peaceful sleep he's had in months, not even to say good-bye, not even to tell him how much he meant to him. It's better this way. (Slash, gen, whatever.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Life Is Over There

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the fictional depictions in the miniseries ONLY; has nothing to do with real life.

_"New Orleans, the Crescent City. Home to the Delta Blues and the French Quarter. Watch your wallet and pocket your watch, this is New Orleans."_

He takes his canvas duffel bag down from the rack, feeling the grit of sand still embedded in the fabric. They'd all tried to scrub and beat the grains out of--well, almost everything, it seemed, but it was still there. They'd been given new dress uniforms a few days before getting on the train, although Eugene had joked that they weren't much better, because the stiff fabric was just as itchy as the sand had been.

He looks down at Gene and pauses for a long moment, wanting to wake him, but knowing he won't. He knows just how to do it, though; he'd learned months ago to lean in and say "Sledgehammer" very softly in his ear. He remembers the time he'd reached over and grabbed his shoulder to let him know they were moving out, and found himself thrown back against the edge of the foxhole, the point of Gene's bayonet at his throat. Remembering the look of shock in Gene's brown eyes when he realized what he was doing still makes his gut twist. Murmur his name, though, and his eyes would open immediately, but peacefully, and ever since the war ended, most times he would even smile as he realized that he was safe, that they were still together and alive--or maybe that was just what he wanted to see. Someone else would have to learn that about Gene now, he realizes, how to awaken him and so many other things. The thought makes him feel...lonely? Jealous? It's hard to say. 

He'd like to think Gene wouldn't mind if he woke him up, that he might even be glad that he said good-bye (and maybe even that he'd be disappointed to wake and find him gone, for the first time in many, many nights), but that's not it. It's that he looks so peaceful, curled up against his own bag, breathing evenly, his face relaxed. He's in for a lifetime of restless nights, fractured by dreams and revisited horrors--hell, they all are; he'd spent many nights over the past months lying awake, either on the train or the barracks or a hole in the ground, listening to the others thrashing around and crying out, unable to escape the reality of it all even inside their own heads. He was doing it himself, even on the way home: a few days ago he'd dozed off somewhere around Beaumont and found himself back on the island, watching that woman holding her baby on the hill, strapped to the dynamite. He knew what was going to happen, had seen it dozens of times already, but knew he couldn't stop it--and had felt Gene's hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. He opened his eyes and saw him and realized, and then looked away, not knowing if he'd muttered and shouted like the others, and not wanting to look into his face and see the answer. But all Gene had said was "You grind your teeth, y'know. You're liketa grind 'em down to the gums, you do it much longer." And then he'd kidded him about how they'd been sleeping in shifts, unable to break the habit. And he can't wake him now; in a way, he  _doesn't_  want to--just seeing him resting quietly like that, even just for a moment, is enough. Somehow, it feels like an achievement; that was all he'd wanted all that time. Just for him to have a square inch of himself left that wasn't burned away and ruined. Somehow, it's better than anything else he'd accomplished on those islands.

He smiles slightly, and then turns away, walking slowly along the aisle and forcing himself not to look back. They'd all exchanged addresses a few days before, Gene and Burgie and a few others, borrowing a fountain pen from a pretty girl passing through the carriage and writing on a torn-up paper napkin. (He'd tried to get the girl to add her number on there as well, but no luck.) Burgie had promised to invite them all to his wedding, if Florence ever made it there and agreed to have him, but he knew he wouldn't go, and he knew he'd never write to any of them. He couldn't let himself be the reminder, the thing tethering his own friends to the whole thing. If their lives were ever going to be anything resembling normal, it had to end, all of it, entirely. One or two of them would probably write to him, he knew--Sledgehammer ( _no, 'Gene' now,_  he reminds himself) had said he would, and that was the thing about him; he always did what he said he would--and he would read his letters, and save every one, and that would be it. That would be the only thing he'd allow himself to keep. And then they'd give up, eventually, when he didn't write back, thinking the address was wrong or that he didn't care, and while the thought feels like a blow to the chest, like the pounding of the ground under him during a shelling, he knows it's for the best. If it was he himself that he had to protect Gene from now, well, that was just how it would have to be.

He steps down onto the platform, hearing the vendors calling out, offering food and drink. He'd told Gene that the second thing he was going to do as soon as he got back was stuff himself silly on beignets and gallons of chicory-flavored coffee, the hometown delicacies he'd missed so much, but now that he's here, for some reason he doesn't feel very hungry. ("What's the first thing you're gonna do?" Gene had asked, and he'd just laughed, exhaling smoke from his nose. He was such a kid sometimes.) He looks around at the waiting crowd and doesn't see anyone he knows there for him, but he didn't really expect anybody. A few other marines jump down from the train behind him, and as he wends his way in between people, one of them whose name he can't remember cuffs him on the shoulder and says "See ya around, Snafu," as he passes. He gives a faint grin in return, knowing that no one will ever call him that again. Now, he's just Merriell, another kid in a uniform who made it back and has to make something of himself, who has to shake hands and hear things like "job well done" and pretend any of it is something to smile about, and that he left it all back there on the beach.

But he can still feel the sand under his fingers. And years later, the smell of pipe tobacco still makes him ache.


End file.
